Heaven Lies Within Us

Alternative title "Yoga Gave Me Superior Health"

"I overheard the doctor speaking to my nurse. He said: "He will not live."

This is how Theos starts his book and his journey to India to study the ancient art of yoga. He takes us in detail through his journey from near death to enlightenment.

"I had scarcely sunk into sleep, when four o'clock came and I had to be up. Promptly I set to work to do Dhauti, which, if you recall, is the swallowing of a long piece of cloth for the purpose of thoroughly cleansing the stomach and removing all excess Kapha. This exercise has also a stimulating effect on certain important nerve centres.

I followed this with Neti. Instead of running the string up the nostrils and bringing it out through the mouth, I used the water method, which consists of sucking water up through the nostrils and spitting it out and of then reversing the process by drawing the water up through the mouth and expelling it through the nostrils. This cleans and enlivens the nerve centres in the head.

It had been a regular practice of mine for a long period to stretch the tongue, so that I
might perform Khecari, or the swallowing of the tongue, an exercise which it was necessary to master before I could take up the advanced Pranayama practices. I devoted some fifteen minutes on this exercise.

I had been keeping up the practice of Uddiyana for some years; so I found no difficulty in doing the exercise 1500 times.

A quarter of six I set as the time to begin standing on my head for half an hour. Having already brought up the practice to its maximum standard of three hours, I found no difficulty in resuming the practice for a mere half hour."